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Subject Specialists: Scholarly Publishing

Author's Addendum

Author's addenda are for creating additions to licenses when negotiating contracts with publishers.

Institutional Repository

The Institutional Repository at the University of Northern British Columbia (UNBC) is an open access digital repository for published and unpublished material created by members of the UNBC community. Its aim is to showcase and preserve UNBC’s unique intellectual output by making content freely available to anyone, anywhere, via the Internet. As a service of the UNBC Library, the Institutional Repository provides researchers with a free, secure, and long-term home for the presentation, dissemination, and preservation of their research and scholarship. By utilizing the Institutional Repository, researchers ensure their work achieves compliance with the Tri-Agency Open Access Policy on Publications.

UNBC's Digital Institutional Repository is hosted through Arca (a network of institutional repositories throughout BC) and includes graduate projects, theses and dissertations, a small number of faculty publications and a few reports. We are in the early stages of building a robust repository hosting locally produced research and scholarly works.

More information about UNBC’s Institutional Repository see our FAQs page and the policies regarding who can upload materials and what can be uploaded. Further details or other questions can be directed to repository@unbc.ca.  

Research Data Management

Sharing research data and making a Data Management Plan are often required by funders and publishers to promote open scholarship. The UNBC Dataverse through Scholars Portal is available to deposit your research data. Please see the Research Data Management Guide for details and contact the Data Services Librarian with any questions.

Evaluating an Open Access Journal: Tips

The following list is from Mount Allison Libraries Open Access Guide. These considerations can be used to evaluate both OA and non-OA journals.

  1. Who sent you this call for articles? 
    If it came from a stranger, you may wish to be more thorough in your evaluation of this publication. If it was sent to you by a friend or colleague, ask them what experience they have with this journal, and if they can vouch for its publishing standards.

  2. Who is the publisher? Is there full, verifiable contact information on their website?
    No address given on the website or misleading information about the country of origin are red flags.

  3. What is the publisher's mandate? Not-for-profit publishers are more likely to have the advancement of scholarship as a motive than making a profit.

  4. What is this journal/publisher's reputation among your peers? 
    Is this journal recognized by your peers as being reliable and relevant to your area of research?

  5. Has this publisher/journal been identified as questionable by others? 
    A quick online search may bring up exchanges about specific journals and publishers. See also the list of suspected predatory journals and publishers by U. of Colorado librarian, Jeffrey Beall at:  http://scholarlyoa.com/publishers/

  6. For open access (OA) journals, is the publisher a member of the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA)? 
    This organization is a recognized advocate and promoter of OA publishing and has produced a Code of Conduct for OA publishers. However, newer publishers may not yet be included, and OASPA membership alone may not be sufficient to ascertain reliability.

  7. Does the publisher have an archiving or preservation policy?
    Examples of established archiving services include Portico or LOCKSS.

  8. Is the OA journal listed in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)?
    Journals are required to meet a certain number of criteria in order to be included in the DOAJ (see selection criteria). In addition, the DOAJ announced in 2013 that it will add a "DOAJ Seal" for those with the highest standards, which will be a helpful tool in assessing journals. Note: There is a delay for new journals to be added to the DOAJ.

  9. Does the journal have an impact factor? How high is the impact factor?
    The most common impact factor is from Thompson-Reuters' Journal Citation Reports, but there are others, such as the Eigenfactor and the SCImago Journal Rank indicator. Impact factors are produced using several years' data, so these will not be available for newer journals. While the value of impact factors in general is debatable, beware of false metrics. See Beall's list of Misleading Metrics.

  10. What peer review measures are in place for this journal? 
    The peer review process should be described on the journal's website, and should be consistent with the usual process in your field. In the case of a newer journal, you may want to contact members of the editorial board to ask about their peer review process.

  11. How qualified is the editorial board of the journal? 
    The journal's website should list the members of its editorial board, as well as their academic credentials and affiliations. You should be able to verify that these people are credible editors for this discipline. (There have been cases where individuals have been added to a list of editors without their consent.)

  12. Is the journal indexed in major databases or index services?
    The journal's articles should be indexed in Web of Science or in your field's respected indexes (e.g. PubMed, CINAHL, ERIC, MLA International Bibliography). Inclusion in Google Scholar should not be taken as an indication of reliability. If the journal's website does not include this information, you can check Ulrich's Periodical Directory in the library reference section (Z 6941 .U55 REF).

  13. How many issues have been published since the journal started?
    The journal's publication record should be consistent and reliable.

  14. What is the journal's acceptance procedure?
    How long did it take for the journal to accept your paper for publication? (Immediate acceptance may be cause for concern.)

  15. Are the articles in the journal of the calibre you would expect?
    Are they on-topic? Are the article topics appropriate for the journal's thematic scope? Is the writing at the level that you would expect for a scholarly journal? Who are the authors? Are they all from the same institution or a small group? Have these articles been cited by reputable authors in reputable journals? (Citation counts can be checked in Web of Science and Google Scholar.)

UNBC APC Discounts

Currently the following publishers provide discounts to UNBC scholars for APCs:

American Chemical Society Microbiology Society
Cambridge University Press PLOS CAP (potentially)
Canadian Science Publishing Royal Society of Chemistry
Company of Biologists Sage
Elsevier Taylor and Francis (potentially)
Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development  

American Chemical Society offers Canadian Research Knowledge Network (CRKN)-affiliated authors a $250 USD flat discount.  APC discount is applied upon submission of manuscript. Authors must identify their institutional affiliation in order to qualify for the discount.

As of Jan. 1, 2022, Cambridge University Press offers Canadian Research Knowledge Network (CRKN)-affiliated authors uncapped, no-cost Open Access publishing in all hybrid and gold OA Cambridge journals.  Cambridge uses an automated system so UNBC authors only need to identify themselves as affiliated with UNBC to have the APC waiver applied.  The APC waiver applies to the following article types:

  • Research Article
  • Review Article
  • Rapid Communication
  • Brief Report
  • Case Report

Canadian Science Publishing offers Canadian Research Knowledge Network (CRKN)-affiliated authors a 25% discount on all journals (reduced from 50% as of Jan. 1, 2022).  APC discount is applied upon submission of manuscript. Authors must identify their institutional affiliation in order to qualify for the discount.

UNBC Library has signed a "read and publish" license with Company of Biologists (2021-2023).  This license includes:

Elsevier offers Canadian Research Knowledge Network (CRKN)-affiliated authors a 20% discount on all journals (excluding titles listed at bottom of screen).  APC discount is applied upon submission of manuscript between January 1, 2021 and December 31, 2023. Authors must identify their institutional affiliation in order to qualify for the discount.

The following steps briefly outline the manuscript submission process:

  • Upon final acceptance of an article for publication, the corresponding author receives an email with a link to choose publishing options and will be asked to choose their institutional affiliation from an auto-complete form.
  • For hybrid journals, if the corresponding author declares themselves affiliated with a CRKN-insitution, they will be presented with the option to publish as a subscription article, or to publish open access.
  • For gold OA journals, the article is open access by default.
  • In both cases, the author is presented with text which states that, as an author affiliated with a CRKN institution, they will receive a 20% discoount on the APC.
  • The author is then given the choice of license - CC BY, or CC BY NC ND
  • Once the author has chosen a license and completed the reainder of the acceptance process.  CRKN is provided with a notification of validation within 48 hours.
  • Upon validation by CRKN, the author (or whomever they have designated as a receiver of the invoice) will receive the invoice with the discount included.

JAFSCD (Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development) is now Open Access and the $500 APC is waived as the Library is a "shareholder".

UNBC Library has signed a "publish and read" license with the Microbiology Society (2022-2024).  This license covers:

  • Unlimited OA publishing: any article published in Society journals where the corresponding author is from a Publish and Read institution will be OA by default with no APCs.
  • Unlimited read access to paywalled content: any user associated with a Publish and Read institution can access the entire archive of Society content, back to 1947, for reading and for text and data mining.

Microbiology Society titles include:

There is an opportunity for UNBC to become a member of PLOS CAP which would allow UNBC authors to publish in PLOS Biology and PLOS Medicine for free.  If you are interested in publishing in PLOS Biology or PLOS Medicine, please contact Heather Empey (heather.empey@unbc.ca)

Royal Society of Chemistry offers CRKN-affilated authors a 15% APC discount.  The APC discount process should be automatic following the steps below:

  • Author submits article to a hybrid RSC journal following the standard process.
  • On acceptance of the manuscript, authors receive an email with a link to the licensing system.
  • The system automatically identifies the eligibility of the author based on the email domain (authors must use their institutional email in order to qualify for the discount).
  • The author selects either the standard license (subscription article) or Open Access license.  If the author chooses Open Access, they are given the option of two Creative Commons licenses (CC-BY or CC-BY NC).

SAGE Open Access Portal (SOAP) is a centralized portal that automates SAGE’s open access publication process. CRKN members participating in the CRKN-SAGE license are eligible for a 40% discount on the Article Processing Charge (APC) for Sage's Gold Open Access titles (see Sage Gold OA title list here) or 100% coverage of the APC of Sage Choice journals (title list of journals offering Sage Choice)  (see title list of journals that DO NOT participate in Sage Choice)) The following steps briefly outline the manuscript submission process. For more information, see the PDF documents below.

  • Authors identify their institution affiliation upon manuscript submission.
  • Authors are notified by email of article acceptance.
  • Within the SAGE Open Access Portal (SOAP), authors can accept or decline to publish their article open access.

Taylor and Francis offers offers Canadian Research Knowledge Network (CRKN)-affiliated authors a discount of 25% on the APC on T&F Open Select Journals.  NOTE: UNBC does not subscribe to the T&F complete package so this may not work for all journals.

To take advantage of the discount on T&F Open Select journals, an author can submit an article and choose the open access publishing option. When the APC is generated, authors can select their institution from the drop-down menu, and the discount will be automatically applied. The author can select a Creative Commons license to sign once they accept the quote.